The proclamations of love, the stories of his or her past — nothing was true. All the money that our partner desperately needed — or promised would buy a life of luxury for the two of us — well, that evaporated into expensive and unnecessary toys, or a secret life with one or more other lovers (targets).

When it finally sinks in that we’ve been conned, the first question we ask of ourselves is, “How could I have been so stupid?”

Followed by, “Why didn’t I see this coming?”

Feeling like chumps, we come down really hard on ourselves. But we aren’t the only ones who are blind to the social predators living among us — our entire society is blind.

The fact that millions of sociopaths live among us is like a giant skeleton in the closet of the human race that nobody wants to talk about. This sets us up to be victimized.

Sociopathic con artists take advantage of this collective and individual blindness. With the skill that comes from practicing their craft from a very young age, they manipulate our empathy and emotions. They use us to accomplish their objectives du jour, whatever they may be.

So here’s why we end up in romantic relationships with sociopathic con artists:

Reason #1 – We don’t know sociopaths exist

Most people think sociopaths are all criminals and deranged serial killers — this isn’t necessarily true. Social predators live among us, and most of them never kill anyone. Still, these people have no heart, no conscience and no remorse.

The numbers are staggering. Lovefraud uses the term “sociopath” to cover all social predators — people who would be clinically diagnosed as being antisocial, psychopathic, narcissistic or borderline. If you add up the official estimates of people with these conditions, perhaps 12% of the population — 37 million people in the US — have personality disorders that make them unsuitable to be romantic partners.

And we, as a society, don’t know it.

Reason #2 – We believe people are basically the same

In the United States, from the time we are small children, we are bombarded with messages about fairness, equal opportunity, giving people a chance and tolerance. In school, we learn that we’re all created equal. In church, we learn that we’re all God’s children.

As a result, we believe all people are basically the same, there is good in everyone, and everyone just wants to be loved. Unfortunately, there is a segment of the population for which this simply is not true.

Sociopaths view the world as predators and prey — they are the predators, and everyone else is prey. They are not motivated by love; they are motivated by power and control. These people pursue romantic relationships not for love, but for exploitation.

Reason #3 – Humans are lousy lie detectors

Research shows that people can identify a lie only 53% of the time — not much better than flipping a coin.

All those signs that are supposedly giveaways that someone is lying — like looking away, failing to make eye contact — well, they simply don’t apply when a sociopath is doing the lying.

Sociopaths are expert liars. They spend their whole lives lying. They feel entitled to lie. They lie for the fun of it. In fact, there’s a phenomenon called “duping delight” — sociopaths get a thrill out of staring right into their targets’ eyes and pulling the wool over them.

People who are not liars never see it coming.

Reason #4 – Sociopaths hijack the normal human bonding process

Trust is the glue that holds society together. Trust is so important to the human race that it is programmed into our biology.

A hormone called oxytocin is released in our brain and bloodstream whenever we feel intimacy — emotional or physical. Oxytocin then makes us feel calm, trusting and content, and alleviates fear and anxiety. Nature created this process to make people want to stay together to raise children.

When sociopaths target us for romantic relationships, they either spend a lot of time building what seems to be trust, or they rush us into emotional, physical or sexual intimacy. Either way, they get the oxytocin flowing in our brains, which makes us trust them. They keep piling on the intimacy, and we, to our detriment, keep trusting.

For more information, read Oxytocin, trust and why we fall for psychopaths, on Lovefraud.com.

Reason #5 – The betrayal bond makes it difficult to escape

Once the love bond is in place, the sociopath does things that create fear and anxiety in us — like cheating on us, or taking more and more money.

Contrary to what we might expect, instead of driving us away, this actually makes the bond we feel with the sociopath stronger. It becomes a betrayal bond — a powerful bond that we feel with someone who is destructive to us.

We want desperately to return to the heady experience of the beginning of our involvement, which was filled with what we believed was love and affection. We keep waiting for the sociopath to make the situation right.

But he or she never does. The exploitation continues.

Betrayal bonds are highly addictive and difficult to break. That’s why we stay in the relationship far longer than we should — until we can no longer escape the fact that we’ve been conned.

Protective Mothers and Supporters; Add this Gold ribbon badge to your social network profile pictures.
Show the world that you are a Protective Mother supporter
Show the world that you love, support and protect children and want to reunite children with their Protective Mom

To learn more about PMA International’s Protective Mother and Child Reunion/ Bring Our Children Home!! Campaign Follow the link below

PMA has previously posted links and articles about developing critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is especially helpful in healing from the damaging effects of abuse, as it can help you to identify the controlling and deceitful tactics of the abuser so you can begin to heal, and re-establish your identity free of violence. Taught to children, critical thinking contributes to healthy self-esteem and the ability to think independently Critical thinking skills may also be a buffer against DV By Proxy. PMA INTL will go further down this path by discussing BIAS.

Identifying and dealing with bias involves the use of critical thinking skills; this article will reveal the different types of bias and discuss how bias affects a person’s ability to see the world as it really is. Some bias is a normal part of life, to some degree everyone has bias; but left unchecked bias can damage the ability to think rationally, and damage the ability to develop healthy relationships with others. For traumatized protective mothers recognizing personal bias and using critical thinking skills, may help protect against re- victimization and manipulations from any source. This article will offer tips on how to prevent bias from becoming an unhealthy influence, again using critical thinking as a powerful tool for self empowerment.

Bias is defined as prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Nowhere is it more crucial for information to be precise than in the intelligence community. In this arena it is a matter of life , death and global peace to be certain that information received is exact and not viewed from the lens of biased eyes. Yet, there have always been problems associated with the accurate analysis of information within the intelligence community. These problems always occur because the human mind is easily influenced by many factors in the environment. In the case of the Cold War, these factors contributed to problems and failures in intelligence. Biases and perceptions can lead to a misconstrued view of reality and the way we process information. http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/bias-and-perception-how-it-affects-our-judgment-in-decision-making-and-analysis

What is Psychological Bias?

Psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky introduced the concept of psychological bias in the early 1970s. They published their findings in their 1982 book, “Judgment Under Uncertainty.”

They discovered that psychological bias – also known as cognitive bias – is the inclination to make decisions or take action in a less than logical way.

Common Psychological Biases

Below, are five psychological biases that are common in decision making. Along with suggestions on how to overcome them

1. Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is looking for information that supports your existing beliefs, and rejecting information that go against your beliefs. A 2013 study found that confirmation bias can affect the way that people view statistics. This can lead you to make biased decisions, since all relevant information is not factored in to your decision.

How to Avoid Confirmation Bias

1. Seek out information from a range of sources, to challenge what you think and learn more about a subject.

3. Discuss your thoughts with others. You may consider joining a club, attending community ed or attending an open mic or jam session as way to participate in or hear lively discussions.

4. Surround yourself with a diverse group of people. You may consider going to community or religious celebrations different than your own, visiting museums/historical sites or volunteering in your community to be exposed to new experiences.

5.Listen to opposing views. This could be as simple as listening to a radio station you have never heard before, or taking the time to talk with a rebellious teenager (kidding).

6.Seek out people and information that challenge your opinions, please use boundaries (especially if you have a history of abuse) to ensure the conversations remain respectful as well as enjoyable.

7.Assign someone you trust to give feedback for major decisions or decisions you struggle with.

2. Anchoring (“ first impression bias”)

This bias is the tendency to jump to conclusions before all the facts are gathered.

How to Avoid Anchoring

Anchoring may happen if you have a tendency to act hastily or are under pressure to make a decision.

NOTE: This is different from the triggers victims of abuse commonly experience; triggers are reactions to past trauma that cause a chemical reaction in the body, causing a person to relive the or experience flashbacks of trauma. A person reacting to a trigger is not biased, though they do experience intense pressure or anxiety it is related to something that has caused them to re-experience or remember a painful event. This is NOT a bias.

1.Reflect on your history, and think about times when you have a past history of rushing to judgment

Follow PMA International via Email

PMA International Gravatar

Protective Mothers Alliance International (PMA International) is a international protective mother-driven organization that includes a global network of like-minded organizations working as a team for positive change.Protective Mothers Alliance International (PMA) is co founded by Lundy Bancroft and Janice Levinson, with Janice Levinson as Executive Director. The PMA INTL family consists of protective mother-driven advocates working together as a tight team for change.PMA INTL is working toward bringing about dramatic reform in family court for protective mothers and their children. PMA INTL. supports the efforts of protective mothers in keeping themselves and their children safe from the abuse of a former partner, and in empowering these mothers to become advocates for themselves and others. PMA INTL. has several networks/groups including but not limited to: Man Up for Moms (M.U.M), Hear us NOW!! ( H.U.N) Healing and Prayer, STOP DV by Proxy.PMA INTL's very successful blog talk radio shows had over 6 thousand listeners . PMA INTL's blog entitled: "The Guardian of Truth" continues to be an effective vehicle for education about family court abuse/ corruption. Protective Mothers Alliance INTL. has launched a gold ribbon campaign in an effort to reunite protective mothers and their children who have been separated by the family court.We invite all advocates and their allies around the globe to wear gold ribbons and to tie gold ribbons around trees, to symbolize the effort that protective mothers and their allies are making to reunite children with their moms.
Please join us in supporting this campaign. " The beautiful memories that we have of our beloved children are golden and can NEVER be erased from our hearts and minds."

A STORY OF HOPE: THE LETTER THAT SURVIVED 9/11/ BY YUKA YONEDA / INHABITAT This story was originally published on September 11, 2014 “Remarkably it survived when so much else did not,” said businessman Raviv Shtaingos about a red envelope he decided to pick up on September 11, 2001 as he fled from Lower […]